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Monday, January 28, 2013

Supporting the MAP Boycott

GET READY! THIS WEDNESDAY, January 30 is a
national call/phone/fax day to tell Seattle Public Schools that you,
your organization and your union stand with the Garfield test
boycotters. Send your message to Seattle Schools Superintendant José
Banda:

How much does all this testing cost WA state taxpayers? We need a study to total up the economic costs of tests, teacher time, computer costs, and lost student time. The taxpayers need to know the cost of testing and need to have a say on whether they pay for it, or not.

Tim Eyman is against for profit red light cameras being forced on the public without the public's say. I think he would feel the same way about the testing industry ripping off the taxpayers of Washington.

What's kind of fascinating is the Washington Policy Center actually thinks the teachers are right and the principals should be deciding this stuff.

To whit:

Top-down mandatory reforms don’t work. The Central Planners fail again. Teachers are rightly resisting MAP because they know test results will be used in part to determine their own pay and promotions, regardless of the very real challenges they face in the classroom.

"Professional teachers should be evaluated by their on-site managers - principals - who know their qualities directly. This is one of the secrets to the persistent success of private education."

(But I'll have to post a separate thread on Liv Finne's latest - and hilarious - post. While Lynne Varner is humorless at least Finne provides some comic relief.)

They assume, of course, that principals are qualified to evaluate teachers. Unfortunately they base their opinions on false assumptions. Go figure. There's nothing funnier - or more insulting - than to have a principal who has never taught, dress you down for your teaching because you weren't standing up front transmitting all the information students needed to know and you didn't have the objectives (that the students can't even read) written up front on the board where the students are supposed to be gazing with "intent learning rapture". Forgive me while I down my 2nd glass of wine to quell my choking.

Following up with CT, it's a balance of how much the principal rating factors in. Yes, I've had some like me so much I was, for all practical purposes, never really evaluated. Some peers have written their own evals at the request of principals/AP's (seriously). I also had the extreme math reform principal write so much fiction into one review I almost left teaching. Never mind my partial support of a functional data piece (like MAP, just not MAP) because after I was run out the HSPE scores came in showing my students scored about 10% higher than my reform-peers (who are good teachers, by the way).

Melissa - keep in mind that while principal input is always valid (I was in industry enough to not have an issue with it despite my experience with a useless twit), part of why we need something like MAP and student input as well is for balance. A principal should be able to overrule ho-hum scores when they acknowledge a teacher who takes on challenging students - especially as some teachers worried about test scores are already acting snotty to troublesome students so they will show up less than the 80% threshhold for their score to count.

We need multiple measures to evaluate everyone. Teacher, I agree, with that. There are principals that ARE the educational leaders at their schools and ARE fully-qualified but there are others I wouldn't want evaluating anyone.

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration